ENG 266
American Literature II
Fall 2015
Professor Jon Thompson
Tompkins 241
www.jon-thompson.net
jon_thompson@ncsu.edu
Syllabus
Course Themes
American culture has always been shaped by voices not fully embraced by the
mainstream, whether those voices come from an environment defined by racial or ethnic
difference, gender difference, class difference or differences having to do with sexual
orientation. This course will explore the nexus between American literature and its rich
traditions of diversity. For our purposes we will focus on diversity in literature as
exemplified by women writers (Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Willa Cather, Elizabeth
Bishop and Gertrude Stein) African-American writers (W.E.B. Dubois, Yusef
Komunyakaa, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin Gwendolyn Brooks, James Wright,
Langston Hughes, Tony Morrison and August Wilson) Native American writers (ZitkalaSa, Simon Ortiz, Michael Dorris), writers who address class (William Faulkner, Cormac
McCarthy and John Steinback), writers who make sexual orientation central to their work
(Frank O’Hara) and Jewish writers (Allen Ginsberg and George Oppen). Key issues:
freedom (individual as well as collective), the struggle for democracy, equality and
inequality, and identity—what it means to be American.
The course will explore literature in the period following the Civil War up to the present
moment as evaluating important social and cultural conflicts in the American experience,
but equally, it will examine the ways in which American writers have used a sense of
difference—a different sense of language, different traditions of oratory and address,
different idioms, different literary traditions and ultimately, different ways of seeing--to
transform American literature and to extend our sense of what it can do.
Course Outcomes
Students will:
1. Analyze how religious, gender, ethnic, racial, class and sexual orientation, disability,
and/or age groups identities are shaped by cultural and societal influences
2. Categorize and compare historical, social, political, and/or economic processes
producing diversity, equality, and structured inequalities in the U.S
3. Examine interactions between people from different religious, gender, ethnic, racial,
class, sexual orientation, disability, and/or age groups in the U.S
4. Interpret a variety of texts from social, historical and cultural perspectives
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5.Analyze relationships between form, context, and meaning
6. Demonstrate their proficiency as writers by creating well-constructed interpretive
arguments
General Education Program
Please note that this course satisfies three hours of the General Education Program (GEP)
Humanities requirement.
Each course in the Humanities category of the General Education Program will provide
instruction and guidance that help students to:
1. Engage the human experience through the interpretation of human culture and
2. Become aware of the act of interpretation itself as a critical form of knowing in the
humanities; and
3. Make academic arguments about the human experience using reasons and evidence
for supporting those reasons that are appropriate to the humanities.
Required Texts
Note: Strong preference for books in print; indeed, some titles are not available in any
other format. A second-best alternative is an electronic version of the text, where
available, on a digital reader such as Kindle or on a laptop computer. Digital versions of
the texts on smart phones are not an acceptable option. Finding the right edition/format of
these books and bringing them to class is a basic prerequisite of the course. Not having
the book under discussion will be regarded as expressing a lack of interest in one of the
most fundamental aspect of the course—reading and class discussions.
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Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper (Dover Thrift Editions, $2.25)
Zitkala-Sa, Impressions of an Indian Childhood (Kessinger Publishing, $11.48)
John Steinback, Of Mice and Men (Penguin, $8.94)
Frank O’Hara, Lunch Poems (City Lights, $8.06)
Yusef Komunyakaa, Dien Cai Dau (Wesleyan UP, $16.98)
Cormac McCarthy, Child of God (Vintage, $11.71)
August Wilson, Fences (Plume, $9.98)
Texts available online
 Emily Dickinson, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” “Wild Nights, Wild
Nights” “I Dwell in Possibility,” “Much Madness is Divinest Sense”
 Excerpt from W.E.B. Dubois, The Souls of Black Folk
 Langston Hughes, “Brass Spittoons,” “Cross” “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”
“Theme for English B,” I, Too,” “The Weary Blues”
 William Faulkner, “Barn Burning”
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 Ralph Ellison, “Battle Royal”
 Richard Wright, “The Man Who Was Almost a Man”
Readings
Aug. 20: 1: Introduction to the course
I Post Civil War Period—WW I
Aug. 25: Emily Dickinson, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” “Wild Nights, Wild
Nights” “I Dwell in Possibility,” “Much Madness is Divinest Sense”
Aug. 27: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Sept. 1: Zitkala-Sa, Impressions of an Indian Childhood
Sept. 3: WEB Dubois, The Souls of Black Folks: “The Forethought” and Ch. 1 and
Chapter XIII.
Sept. 7: Labor Day
Sept. 8: W.E.B. Dubois, The Souls of Black Folk: Chapters IX and Chapter XI
II Interwar Period
Sept. 10: Ralph Ellison, “Battle Royal”
Sept. 15: William Faulkner, “Barn Burning”
Sept. 17: John Steinback, Of Mice and Men
Sept. 22: John Steinback, Of Mice and Men
Sept. 24: Langston Hughes, “Brass Spittoons,” “Cross” “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”
“Theme for English B,” I, Too,” “The Weary Blues”
III Post WWII Period—1989
Sept. 29: Allen Ginsberg, Howl (Part I)
Oct. 1: Richard Wright, “The Man Who Was Almost a Man”
October 6: Frank O’Hara, from Lunch Poems (“A Step Away from Them,” “The Day
Lady Died,” and “Steps”)
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Oct 8-9: FALL BREAK
October 12: Essay #1 Due—Leave in box outside my office, Tompkins
241 by 4.00pm
Oct. 13: Frank O’Hara, from Lunch Poems (“A Step Away from Them,” “The Day Lady
Died,” and “Steps”)
Oct. 15: Annie Proulx, Close Range (“The Mud Below”)
Oct. 16: Drop/Revision deadline
Oct. 20: Midterm Exam
Oct. 22: Annie Proulx, Close Range (“Brokeback Mountain”)
Oct. 27: Cormac McCarthy, Child of God
Oct. 29: Cormac McCarthy, Child of God
Nov. 3: August Wilson, Fences
Nov. 5: August Wilson, Fences
Nov. 10: Yusef Komunyakaa, Dien Cai Dau
Nov. 12: Yusef Komunyakaa, Dien Cai Dau
Nov. 17: Simon Ortiz, from Sand Creek
Nov. 19: Simon Ortiz, from Sand Creek
Nov. 24: Art Spiegelman, Maus
Nov. 26-27: THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY
Dec. 1: Art Spiegelman, Maus
Dec. 3: Retrospective
Dec. 8: Essay #2 Due, Tompkins 241, by 12.00pm
Dec. 15: Final Exam, 9.00am-12.00am (not 8.00am-11.00am)
Office Hours: Tuesdays/Thursdays: 9.00am-10.00am; Wednesdays, 9.00-10.00am
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Grades
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2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Participation: 10%
In class quizzes/writing: 10%
Essay 1: 20% [topic sheet to be assigned]
Essay 2: 20% [topic sheet to be assigned]
Midterm: 20%
Final exam: 20%
Technical Requirements for Writing the Essays
Your essay should be 8-10 pages in length.
Below are guidelines for the formatting of essays based on recommendations from
the MLA (the Modern Language Association).
▪ Fonts: Your essay should be word processed in 12-point Times New Roman fonts.
▪ Double space: Your entire essay should be double spaced, with no single spacing
anywhere and no extra spacing anywhere. There should not be extra spaces
between paragraphs.
▪ Heading: In the upper left corner of the first page of your essay, you should type your
name, the instructor's name, your class, and the date, as follows:
Your
Name
Mr. Rambo
ENG 1001-05
30 August 2013
▪ Margins: According to the MLA, your essay should have a one-inch margin on the
top, bottom, left, and right. ▪ Page Numbers: Your last name and the page number should appear in the upper right
corner of each page of your essay, including the first page, as in Jones 3. Insert
your name and the page number as a "header." Do not type this information where
the text of your essay should be.
▪ Title: Your essay should include a title. The title should be centered and should appear
under the heading information on the first page and above the first line of your
essay. The title should be in the same fonts as the rest of your essay, with no
quotation marks, no underlining, no italics, and no bold.
▪ Indentation: The first line of each paragraph should be indented. According to the
MLA, this indentation should be 1/2 inch or five spaces, but pressing [Tab] once
should give you the correct indentation. ▪ Align Left: The text of your essay should be lined up evenly at the left margin but not
at the right margin. In your word processor, choose "Align Left." Do not choose
"Justify." Do not resort to spacing tricks—they’re miserably ineffective and to a practiced eye, they
only draw attention to what is missing!
NCSU offers a wealth of writing resources. For starters, look at:
http://tutorial.ncsu.edu/wsts-resources
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For hands-on assistance with a real human being, see http://tutorial.ncsu.edu/wstsundergrad
Grade Scale:
97-100= A+
93-96=A
90-92=A87-89=B+
83-86=B
80-82=B77-79=C+
73-76=C
70-72=C67-69=D+
64-66=D
61-63=D0-60=F
Course Policies
Welcome! My classes offer a dynamic, interactive learning environment based upon
mutual respect, intellectual openness and responsibility. In order for the class to smoothly
function at this level, it is necessary to establish some basic ground rules.
1. The course will be organized around discussions and mini-lectures. Since this course
offers a learning environment structured around the collective insights of the class,
participation is required. But don’t panic: participation consists of lots of things (and not
just the ultimate magisterial interpretation): for example-- informed questions,
observations, noting parallels between one thing or field and another, interesting tensions,
etc. I encourage all of these forms of participation. [If you are very shy about speaking
up, you can assemble this writing into a notebook and I will accept it in lieu of seminar
participation. Please let me know in the first week if you would like to avail of this
option.]
Note on mobile devices: In order to allow for a focused, participatory classroom
experience, I ask that everyone turn off his or her cell phone before class, and all cell
phones are to be put away and out of sight during class. Texting distracts students and it
distracts me, and in my view, it threatens the integrity of the educational experience: if
you text in my class you will automatically forfeit the participation part of your grade
(10%), so ask yourself if texting a friend or family member is worth that. For similar
reasons, surfing the internet, emailing, doing homework for other classes, reading
material not under discussion, eating and grooming oneself are to be done before or after
class, but not in it. (Drinks, however, are OK).
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2. Attendance is assumed and mandatory. Everyone is allowed 3 emergency absences.
Every absence after that will result in the deduction of a full point from the student’s final
overall average. If you are wise, you will use these carefully. If you miss more than 6
classes, you will fail the course.
3. Everyone is responsible for turning in all assignments on time, and for assimilating
material covered in seminar lectures and discussions. If you’re having trouble with the
content of the course, please see me. ASAP.
4. Missed assignments can only be made up at my discretion, and only if you notify me
in advance.
5. Otherwise, work turned in after the due date will be penalized a half a letter grade for
every day that it is late. All work turned in late will be graded late (after the work that has
been turned in on time).
6. Plagiarized work will automatically be failed and the student will receive an “F” for
the semester. In addition, the case may be referred to the Student Judicial Board for
further sanctions. Each essay must be turned in with the following pledge: “I undertake
that this essay is my work and my work alone. No one else has contributed to it and
I have not used anyone else’s ideas or language without attribution.”
Signed________________.
7. If you run into difficulties or have questions about the assignments, course content or
grading procedures, please don’t hesitate to discuss them with me. It is easier to help
students in the early stages of a problem; it is much harder to do so later on...
Note: Accommodations will be made for verified disabilities as per university
regulations.
8. In this class, as in all your classes, follow Ovid’s advice: "Either do not attempt at all,
or go through with it."
Going Forward—Career Center Resources
Explore career options related to your major, make decisions about your major or minor,
build resumes and cover letters, prepare for interviews, develop internship/ job search
strategies, maximize career fairs, and more. Use ePACK to make an appointment with
your career counselor through ePACK. Career Development Center, 2100 Pullen
Hall.careers.ncsu.edu
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